Semiconductor Complex, Mohali by Romi Khosla

The Semiconductor Complex laboratory, factory and office complex is located in Mohali 8 kilometres from Chandigarh the new capital of the Punjab designed by Le Corbusier in the 1950’s, it is a public sector company, primarily engaged in research and development, conception and production of large-scale integrated units. It was designed by Romi Khosla Design Studios (RKDS).

The construction programme started with under-ream piles and the whole of the process area was made in structural steel above the pile caps. The columns and N-girders and trusses were erected simultaneously, bay by bay, and once the entire hail was erected, the roof was laid.

The roof consists of steel decking, light-weight concrete and a thin layer of nominally reinforced concrete. Normal seven course waterproofing was carried out on top of the cambered slab. The construction took less than 6 months.

The design of the semiconductor complex envisaged protection from heat, dust, humidity, noise and vibrations. All sides of the process area therefore had to have a series of protective layers. Underneath there is soling, sand fill and polythene sheeting followed by an RC slab on ground beams, finished with seamless PVC flooring.

Exterior view

The skies of the building have an aluminium slatted water curtain followed by a brick wall and then a service corridor. All the internal walls are made of stud and skin partition using a laminated board for the skin. The core of the process areas, such as the yellow rooms and mask fabrication, are totally isolated with a 3 micron dust cleanliness.

Ground Floor Plan

Micro Technology is too new a principle to dictate hard and fast design principles. Design for services are particularly taxing since they account for more than 50 per cent of the budget.

To avoid planning problems and innumerable changes in design and equipment layout, a special design cell was opened in a secluded place. Architects, engineers and the owners worked together, ‘brain-storming’ often until the early hours of the morning.

First Floor Plan

In a short span of 16 weeks, almost all the working drawings were prepared and issued to site. The planning of the operation was meticulously controlled; and there were hardly any changes once the drawings were completed.